A Slight Detour...

Friends, I'm afraid I'm running out of ideas on this "Goodness" week. I hate to keep driving things into the ground... So, I wanted to take today to share with you a study method that I learned awhile back. It's called the REAP method, and is a very effective method for personal devotions and journaling time:
Read
Examine
Apply
Pray

Obviously the very first step would be to pray that God would speak to you, through His Word. Something along the lines of, "God, I pray and ask that you would speak to me, through Your Word, this morning, Lord. Please meet with me, and show me what You would have me to learn today. Amen." You know something along those lines, but make it personal... use your own wording and let it come from your heart. Sometimes my prayer has been, "God, I don't know what I'm doing right now... but I ask that you would show me, through Your Word, Your will for my life."

Then... you Read... read a chapter or two or whatever your reading plan looks like. When you get to a verse that sticks out to you underline it. Don't stop and ponder it too deeply at this point. Finish reading your chapter, underlining things that jump out at you.

When you're done reading, find one of the verses that stuck out to you the most and... Examine what the author is saying, or what the verse is saying. Remember, we're not trying to apply the verse yet, we're just looking at what is being said in the verse that you underlined. I'll use my own devotions from this morning as an example:
I read Galatians 2 and underlined about 3 different places in the chapter. Then I looked over what I had underlined, a.k.a. what stood out to me, and then picked one to focus on for today. I chose Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
So, here we would ask ourselves, "What is Paul saying?" That's all we want to know...
He says that he has been crucified with Christ, which means that, just as Christ died, he too has died to this world. "and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me..." He has given up his own life, and exchanged it for the work of the Gospel. He continues on to say that He lives by faith in the Son of God, and he recognizes the sacrifice of love made by Christ on his behalf. So, there you have it! Paul says that he no longer lives for himself, but for Christ. He has taken up his cross, to follow Christ, and he lives by faith alone.

Now that we somewhat understand what Paul is saying here, we know better how to Apply it.
Here is where you would write your resolve as to what changes you might need to make in your life. Mine for this verse would be:
"Just as Paul died to himself (his old sin nature) I too must die to my own desires and follow Christ. I must learn to live as though Christ is living through me. The life of a believer must be governed by the Holy Spirit communicating with our spirits and I must be willing, by faith, to obey what the Spirit tells me... 'and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God...' I must learn to have a complete and trusting faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ.
"Also there is the reminder of Christ's love, which I must not be quick to forget! The love of Christ is the key to my salvation, and the constant reminder of His love will keep me going, even when things are tough."

Now that we've applied the verse, here is where we would write down a prayer about what we've read, examined and applied...
"Lord, thank You for Your Son's sacrifice on my behalf. God, I know that, without Your merciful sacrifice and love, I would have no chance of a relationship with You. Father, I thank You for the undeserved gift of Your love. I want to live for You, Jesus. I pray and ask that You would help me to die to myself, and to live for You. Lord, I ask that You would help me to have that 'crucified with Christ' mentality. That I would not hold to my rights, which come only from You anyways, but that I would consider myself as Your slave... that I would understand that my goal in life is to glorify You and serve You. I thank You, Lord, for Your Word this morning... in Jesus' name, Amen."

And there you have it! A simple, yet very efficient, study method for reading the Scriptures on your own! Let's go over it one more time:
Read a chapter (or whatever amount that you read) and underline things that jump out at you
Examine one of the point that you underlined and ask yourself "what is this verse saying?".
Apply the principles seen in the verse and write out what you need to do
Pray and ask God to help you with the changes that need to be made in your life to become more like Christ.

I hope that this method of study will be as helpful to you as it has been to me. If you aren't quite clear on any of the points, please, send me an e-mail and I'll try to clarify. I can be quite confusing sometimes!
I hope you have a great weekend and I look forward to starting back up next week!

Grace and Peace!


Questions or Comments? E-mail me at afflquestions@yahoo.com .